Elysée Palace floor plans stolen

Highly confidential floor plans of the French presidential Elysée Palace, the
interior ministry and the Paris police headquarters have been stolen from a
car in Paris, in an embarrassing security lapse.

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In a statement, the interior ministry sought to downplay the theft, saying that the documents were not classified and that their disappearance "put none of the sites concerned in danger".

The stolen files also contained the floor layouts of several "large businesses," it added.

The 01net website said that even if the thieves were initially unaware of their bounty, given the media coverage of the affair, "they could be tempted to auction their haul off now that its strategic value has been made public".

This is not the first security blunder for the Elysée since François Hollande took power. In June, it transpired that absent-minded secret service agents tasked with protecting the French president "forgot to pack their guns" while on a trip to a climate conference in Brazil.

Britain has also had its fare share of security lapses. Last November, it transpired that the Ministry of Defence had more than 280 computers lost or stolen in an 18-month period, along with 73 USB memory sticks.

Andrew Robathan, the defence secretary, stressed at the time that information contained on the devices was encrypted or had other security measures in place.